In the mid-1920s, Canadian Pacific began to issue a series of menus apparently commemorating major cities (or in some cases, pairs of cities) along its route. In fact, they are actually not-so-subtle ads for Canadian Pacific operations in those cities. Most are dated 1926, but they can be from 1925 through 1928. Several use the same designs as others, but there seem to be several different basic designs. Even if the designs vary, they all seem to be part of a thematic series. The Chung collection includes a dozen menus in this series.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

With the black background and the subject painting appearing as if through a window frame, today’s three menus clearly go together. The first one shows the canal between Lake Superior and Lake Huron near Sault St. Marie, the namesake for Canadian Pacific’s subsidiary, the Soo Line.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

The second menu shows grain elevators in the Twin Cities, not Minneapolis and St. Paul but Fort William and Port Arthur. Here grain was unloaded from CP trains into the elevators awaiting transfer to steamships.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

The final menu today shows Toronto through a square window rather than an arched one. All three menus today were 1926 lunch menus used in CP dining cars.